Ucla Upsets Kansas, Ends '80s Frustration

March 19, 1990|By DAVE FAIRBANK Staff Writer

ATLANTA — An inside joke and an unheralded collection of athletes helped land UCLA in college basketball's Sweet 16 for the first time in a decade.

The seventh-seeded Bruins bounced No. 2 Kansas 71-70 in an NCAA East Region second-round game at the Omni and will face Duke on Thursday at Byrne Arena in the Meadowlands. The third-seeded Blue Devils defeated St. John's 76-72 in Sunday's other second-round game in Atlanta.

UCLA's last trip to the NCAA Sweet 16 was 1980, when Larry Brown took a young, overachieving bunch to the national championship game where they lost to Louisville.

"It's a great feeling for me," said senior forward Trevor Wilson, the Bruins' 6-foot-8 load of a forward. "I've been here four years and trying to keep the winning tradition."

Freshman Tracy Murray's two pressurized free throws with 9.1 seconds to play lifted the Bruins (22-10).

Kansas (30-5), which spent half the season ranked No. 1 and came into the tournament ranked fifth, had a final shot at victory. But Rick Calloway's jumper with three seconds to play missed, and Jeff Gueldner's off-balance, push/follow attempt was tipped by the Bruins' Don MacLean.

"This is a feeling that causes the excellence over the course of the year of this team ...," Kansas Coach Roy Williams said, the sentence trailing off and his voice choked with emotion. "This is a feeling I didn't expect to have."

UCLA played like a top-five team all game. The Bruins made excellent use of a zone defense that held Kansas to 48.1 percent shooting and 20 points below its average.

"UCLA's athletic ability really hurt us," Williams said. "As big as they are spread out in that zone and as athletic as they are, they take up a lot of room."

Murray's two free throws were the final points in a game that had 22 lead changes.

Williams called two consecutive timeouts, the first to try to rattle Murray, the second to set up the Jayhawks' offense for the final sequence.

Murray appeared shakier going to the line immediately after the foul than he did after each timeout, when he tried to stifle a grin emerging from the huddle.

"No, I wasn't really that calm. I was a little nervous," he said. "But when they called the two timeouts, I thought it was a little funny - freeze-the-freshman type of deal. The guys kept me positive on the bench."

Wilson said he tried to keep Murray loose with an inside joke.

"I'd rather not tell you what it is," Wilson said. He would only say it wasn't obscene.

"I was a little nervous, but I was still calm - sort of," Murray said with a grin.